If You Take A Mouse To School

                       

Many children have already started school and many more are starting soon! One fun back-to-school book to read to your children or listen to on You Tube is If You Take A Mouse To School by Laura Numeroff and illustrated by Felicia Bond. Children love the funny chain of events that take place in all her "If You...." books. All the things the mouse does in this book will be great reminders of what awaits them when they do go back to school. So read your own copy or listen and watch If You Take a Mouse to School on You Tube. And, we will see you at Meet The Teacher!

After reading the book, let your child choose some activities to replicate from the book, or you can choose a few to have them do. Here are some ideas straight from the pages:

This is a great opportunity to talk about taking lunch to school and pulling out the lunchbox. (Remember, this year we are asking that you send your child's lunch in a Bento box-style lunchbox with one lid that covers everything.  They are available in many places and at many price points. This will minimize the amount of contact the teacher has with your child's food.) You may even want to prepare or let your child help prepare lunch food and put it in the compartments. And, it is a good time with older ones to talk about what they would like to take for lunch. Having some input will excite and empower the child. 

Practice washing hands correctly for 20 seconds.

 Do a science experiment (there are some on previous blog posts i.e. about coloring with leaves, walking water). 

Read a book.

Make a book. Your child can dictate a short story for you to write down, or you could staple some pages together that they could just draw in or color.

 Build a little mouse house with legos or whatever blocks you have. 

Count - how high depends on your child's age; have them actually count objects with one-to-one correspondence rather than just recite if they are able. You can also have your child group objects in 2,s 3's, etc. 

Go outside and play ball.

<skip the skateboarding with preschoolers!> 

Make a snack to eat together. 

These should be fun and surely help get your child excited about school and, of course, as always they will love spending time with you doing these activities.